IDF Major J. built Israel’s new border defense trenches along the Syrian border with his bare hands – or at least commanding a fleet of engineering vehicles.
In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post about the status of the trenches, which the Post witnessed up close a few months before, Maj. J. gave a fuller history of the new Syrian border defense project.
“We started in August 2024 and worked on a few different positions in parallel,” even before the fall of the Assad regime over December 7-8, 2024, said the major, whose father spent around 30 years reaching a top rank in the Israel Prison Service, with a brother who is a lieutenant-colonel in the IDF, and another brother in the Jerusalem police force.
His is a story of an Israeli-Druze family from Ma’jar, which is inseparable from Israel’s military and security forces.
In August 2024, “the Syrians could see our engineering vehicles from a kilometer away. We carried it out in the demilitarized zone. There are other defense lines beyond the border fence in the international area. We exploited the situation down to the last meter available, but we have a right to do that, also with tanks and infantry.”
Maj. J. stated that “the barrier is exactly on the fault line. It’s a bit complex. Some land areas are not fully defined in terms of sovereignty, and we are aggressive. We didn’t want certain unknown actors [Syrian jihadists] to be there… We put the barrier a bit beyond that [uncertain] area. It’s not critical for us to go too far out, and we are generally still on the international border.”
He said that the IDF still cooperates with UN forces on the Syrian border.
Later, he said the military “invested more resources in more positions and picked up our pace. We are hoping to finish this coming year,” by the end of 2025.
Further, he said, “We are also improving the barrier to add technological defenses, but it takes a long time. Still, we can finish this strategic barrier by the end of 2025 or early 2026.”
Next, he noted that the deep trenches are complemented with boulders, tanks, artillery, and electronic sensors.
The Post has seen that the trenches are several meters deep and intimidating for any potential invading force.
However, “coming from Combat Engineering, we know that no obstacle is impregnable… It doesn’t matter how deeply you dig trenches, since in Gaza, that barrier even went deep underground… But the question is how much time it takes to get through.”
“You want to make the enemy think about it. To make them realize that just having pickup trucks will not be sufficient to get through,” he explained.
Continuing, he stated that forcing potential invaders “to use engineering vehicles gives us more time, and if the enemy has to cross on foot, that gives us more time than if they can cross the border in pickup trucks. If they bring engineering vehicles, it is easier to spot them from afar… And if we see those vehicles, it sets off a red warning light” for all IDF forces.
Discussing Israel’s wider activities in Syria, Maj. J. said the IDF has “attacked lots of strategic weapons and vehicles – we also continue to attack infrastructure, using both our air force and our infantry, because we don’t want Syria’s weapons to get into the hands of unknown actors... It’s unclear how that would play out.”
While Israel has mostly had success in its targeted attacks since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad, there are multiple complications with attack operations in Syria as Israel tries “to attack these weapons without hitting anyone,” civilian or fighter – and the identities of many persons are unclear, such that “we don’t always know who might turn and shoot at us.”
Maj. J. has not only been a leader of the IDF’s engineering moves in Syria, but also in Gaza.
'On October 7, I was stationed near Gaza'
On October 7, “I was stationed with the northern Gaza brigade and remained with them for nine months of fighting. I came from my house at 8:30 a.m. and was part of the fight over the Yiftach village. I took my protected engineering vehicles and drove to the kibbutzim to Re’im and then on October 8 to Kfar Aza and participated in two days of fighting,” he said.
“I was in almost all of the Gaza neighborhoods, not just in southern Gaza. I started my part in the Gaza invasion in Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya. Later, I was also in Shejaia. Also, I spent time in Rafah and worked a lot with the then-401st “Iron Tracks” Brigade commander, Col. Ehsan Daxa, who was killed in Jabalya in northern Gaza in October 2024,” J. said.
Daxa is considered one of Israel’s biggest heroes and highest-ranked loss officers of the war, and the major was close with him.
Further, he said, “I was also involved in addressing engineering challenges at the Philadelphi Corridor. We ensured proper security proofing of IDF positions there.”
“Sometimes our ‘bugar’ engineering devices also found light coming from tunnels, such as Mohammed Sinwar’s huge tunnel near the Erez Crossing. We found that with one of our bugars,” he noted.
Still, he warned that, “Gaza is not easy. We continue to fight until the end. I am sure the company will do its best, including destroying enemy infrastructure. Many of the Gaza houses were loaded with weapons, both in northern and southern Gaza. It was not an easy nine months” that he spent fighting there.
During this war, Israel and the IDF “had a challenging period, but also the achievements were incredible… I do feel a profound sense of fulfillment.”
Besides Syria and Gaza, Maj. J. has also been part of history on the border with Lebanon.
“I was involved in destroying Hezbollah’s tunnels during the very impressive and major 2019 operation,” he said. “The intelligence and engineering work was at a very high level and required working through many nights straight. We did it very quickly and effectively. Now we have the experience to be able to eliminate tunnels anywhere.”
Back to the Golan Heights: “We are continuing the barrier and building military positions,” Maj. J. concluded, “while hoping to finish as quickly as possible.”